Posted on 07/23/2014 6:25:39 AM PDT by Star Traveler
Israels mood at the start of this war with Hamas was one of confident assurance. We wouldnt be deterred by the rocket threat, and Hamas would be contained.
Thats utterly changed. The rockets turned out to be the least of our concerns. And the national mood now is a mixture of anguish at the growing toll of IDF dead, anger at the feckless response of parts of the international community notably the US and confidence in the troops and (atypically) the political leadership.
To lose the lives of 30 Israelis to terrorism is, appallingly, nothing new in a country that survived the suicide bombing onslaught of the second intifada. As the former Shin Bet intelligence chief Avi Dichter pointed out on Tuesday, 30 Israelis were killed in a single Hamas suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya on Passover Eve March 27, 2002. That was the worst, but still only one of dozens upon dozens of bombings that battered Israels buses, restaurants and shopping malls a decade ago.
But to lose 30 soldiers battling vicious Islamic extremists in Gaza produces anguish of a different nature. Our soldiers are our future. Theyre the youngsters among us, who have been required because of Israels unique geographic and geostrategic peril to place themselves on the front line for years of service before their young lives have really begun. We feel guilty that weve pitched them into war. We, the safe civilians, draw our strength from the sky-high level of their determination and motivation to protect us. We wish it were us, the grownups, who were on the front line. Wed have much preferred for the rockets, targeting all of us, to have been the chief threat.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesofisrael.com ...
And furthermore...
If the murdering Palis are not the enemy, they need to prove it by having emergency recall elections, and electing a bunch of Rabbis and menches to most public offices.
That didn’t work well here in the USA with Obama ... LOL ... (he actually did have a second election). Thank goodness he’s not going for a third election or else these same people would elect him a third time.
But whomever is elected in Gaza or the USA — in Gaza Israel isn’t treating the Palestinian civilians as the enemy and shooting them, killing them, depriving them of basics for living - but they are doing so with Hamas.
Likewise in the USA, these stupid people did elect Obama, but we’re not advocating shooting them, killing them, or having a mass expulsion of all Obama voters from the land area of the USA ... :-) ...
So ... no matter how much I hate Hamas and no matter how much I can’t stand Obama and think he has absolutely wrecked the country - I’m not going to tell anyone to shoot the Obama voters, or kill the Obama voters or have a mass expulsion of the Obama voters from this country — and neither does Israel think that about the Palestinian civilians.
Check with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (whom I support 100%) and his official statements. You’ll find the same. Check with the IDF, where they announce almost DAILY that they do not target Palestinian civilians and go to extremes to avoid collateral damage to them. They even post videos on their website which shows that they protect Palestinian civilians.
Now, there are some Jews who would advocate that, and who have actually done so themselves, just like the Jews who killed the Palestinian boy and tried to set him on fire. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised the most severe penalties for any Jew ever doing that, along with the most severe penalty for any Palestinian doing that.
Ninth Lesson From the Gaza War: Hamas Will Use Humanitarian Aid for Evil
"But the problem is that so long as Hamas rules Gaza, it will use all humanitarian aid for its terrorist purposes. Almost anything sent to Gaza can have a dual use. Even if it cant be put directly to use in furthering terrorism, it can be used to help the terrorists in one way or another. Gasoline can power an electric generator or a getaway car. Food can feed innocent civilians or sustain terrorists in some hideout. Concrete can build a house or a terror tunnel. "
Let’s cut to the chase.
If people in the neighboring county were lobbing rockets at your neighborhood, how would you stop them ?
But we DO shutter a company in the USA because they DON'T have any criminals working for them, and aren't violating any laws.
See GIBSON GUITARS.
PA Chief Abbas Funding Hamas Terrorist Force
For the past week, Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas has been partially paying the salaries of 3,000 members of Hamas so called Executive Force, an armed terrorist group created by Hamas in May. Hamas, which calls in its Charter for Israel s destruction (Article 15) and the murder of Jews (Article 7) and which won Palestinian legislative elections in January,
-----------------------------------------
SO.... we fund Abbas, who funds Hamas. CORRECT ?
I noticed you haven’t responded, which proves that YOU ...
are probably busy doing something else and not near a computer. : )
Hopefully you will read these comments later, and if we are both ‘online’ , continue our debate.
Only one problem (at least for me). What were we originally debating ? I ask because it seems we slid sideways into multiple other subjects.
If we could ‘define’ the issue, maybe we could debate it better.
Well, in that regard, I’ll simply defer to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF, as they’ve spoken about that, in the last few days to a week or so. Netanyahu has said that they don’t intend to get rid of Hamas, but to degrade their capability and restore quiet to Israel. He’s said their objective is not the replacement of Hamas.
And then, the IDF has said that they don’t want to wipe out Hamas completely because in their view, Hamas keeps those other terrorist offshoots in Gaza under control. They don’t want these others to all of a sudden find that they are under no control (i.e., Hamas gone completely).
In fact, I remember in the past, before these recent events, that Israel (Netanyahu) told Hamas that they expected them to keep those other groups under control, or else Israel would strike back at Hamas. In other words, Israel didn’t want to be tracking one group and another group and striking each one separately to “send a message”, but just strike Hamas, just one organization, which would make it much easier on Israel.
Now, I’m telling you the perspective from Israel, the Netanyahu government and the IDF and not something that originated from me.
It’s like Netanyahu said to Kerry a day or two ago, when they got into a yelling match, with Netanyahu telling off Kerry and telling him that “he” (Kerry) didn’t know what Israel needed but that “they” (Israel) did, so he should butt out, as they knew exactly what was needed.
And the above is what they think they need.
You go after the perpetrators, just like Israel is going after Hamas. You send the army and either capture or kill the terrorists.
I agree with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and what he says the goals are, and what they want to achieve past this, which is disarmament. I don’t have any problem with Netanyahu or the IDF.
We’re screwed up too, just like others in the world.
Things have changed since then. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas are pretty much deadly enemies, vying for control of all the territories. Now Israel will go for Abbas and the P.A. being in control, but they won’t with Hamas in control of all the territories. Hamas is in control of Gaza right now, while the PA is in control of Judea and Samaria.
Hamas has been shooting rockets off while the PA has not ... and it’s a whole lot more porous of a border for Judea and Samaria then it is for Gaza.
Now back then, when all this happened in Gaza, it was really a shock for the USA, Israel and the PA that Hamas won in Gaza, and prior to that, there was am uneasy cooperation between the PA and Hamas. Afterwards Hamas murdered PA officials and took full control.
They were working together before, somewhat, but are big enemies now - however the PA has tried to “paper over” their animus towards each other and present a “unity pact” so that the PA can officially say that they control all the territories, including Gaza - when dealing with foreign countries. Before, Abbas had to embarrassingly say that he wasn’t in control of Gaza ... so how could he really “represent” all the Palestinians. He couldn’t and that was a stumbling block for him.
But Hamas isn’t going to allow the PA to control anything over there, and the PA isn’t going to allow Hamas to control anything in Judea and Samaria.
And we now have Egypt wanting the PA to control the Gaza side of the Egyptian border and replace Hamas there. Israel supports this, as it gives the PA a chance to eventually get back in control over there.
All that to explain the unity pact, the “papering over” of their differences, even though they are deadly enemies, and how Egypt and Israel both want the PA back in Gaza and Israel willing to deal with the PA, but not with Hamas, and that Netanyahu wants the area disarmed.
The situation from the past is not the situation today, just like it’s not with Egypt in that they want Israel to really punish Hamas and that Israel is working with Egypt on the matter of Hamas.
Israel wants the PA funded, but they don’t want Hamas funded and they want to do both at the same time. After Hamas is successfully disarmed, then Israel will probably fund some of the civilian governmental agencies for administering Gaza.
I’m not sure what it was originally, but in general problems usually come up simply from my position of backing Israel the way “they” think they should do things - as opposed to many saying that Israel should do it differently and do things like — forcefully vacate the entire Palestinian population from the territories and take it over, or kill Palestinian civilians as if they are terrorists because they voted for Hamas, or that the PA should be treated the same way as Hamas and thus they should not get any money or help either.
Now as for me, I do back how Israel is doing things with Hamas, with the PA, with the Oslo Accords, with the Palestinian civilians and with their decision on how far to go with Hamas,
SO ... what I find is that simply backing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF and how they think about these things and how they react, along with their policies - and explaining why and how they have come to “here and now” — just that alone is enough for some to say that I am a Hamas supporter or a Islamic Terrorist supporter ... LOL ...
I would agree with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in what he told Kerry in that Israel knows better how to handle these things ... :-) ...
I’ll go along with Netanyahu on that and keep explaining how and why it’s this way.
Ill go along with Netanyahu on that and keep explaining how and why its this way.
Fine with me. I don't think we disagree there.
However, I still think that some of OUR money is going to the wrong 'side', and it's not just the Israel-Gaza situation where it happens.
Yeah... but we're pretty good at hiding it.
IIRC, the original ‘issue’ was my claim that WE were funding HAMAS.
So.... I’ll go back to what I said in a previous post.
IF... we quit sending money to Palestine, the PLO, and anyone else involved except Israel, do you think these ‘terrorists’ would continue to fire rockets from Gaza to Israeli neighborhoods ?
These monies are not paid to Hamas, which is what I said.
I have no doubt Hamas nevertheless gets its hands on some, possibly much, of it, but we simply aren’t “giving money to Hamas.”
IF the government of Palestine is made up of members of HAMAS (which it is) , and we give money to the government of Palestine (which we do), how is it that you can say we don’t give it to Hamas ?
That’s like saying you gave money to the Democrat Party, but not to Democrats.
Yeah, actually I think it will keep up. I think the larger majority of money and material is coming from Muslim sources (specific ones) ... which are, as of now, mainly Qatar, with Turkey being close behind in hosting the Hamas leadership, and then Iran, who provided the majority of funding in the past.
My belief is that we could cut off all humanitarian funding (which Hamas can use and skim portions) from all conceivable angles, from the West ... and still ... Muslim terrorist sources would fill up the pipeline regardless. The Muslim terrorist sources have a lot of money, thanks to the world’s demand for oil and their reserves.
A side note here ... is if we could eliminate the world’s demand for oil and completely shift off it ... we could eliminate a large majority of terrorism, because its funding would dry up. However, we’ll never do that any time soon.
The solution, I think, is what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says ... in disarmament. He’s on the right track. And it’s especially encouraging that the EU Ministers voted to disarm Hamas (it’s only a start).
I believe Hamas has overplayed its hand and that they continue overplaying their hand. And I don’t care what the “Arab Street” around the world does in protests, because I don’t think it ultimately makes any difference. I don’t care what the “street” says in the West, with their protests for Gaza, because I don’t think that makes any difference.
What I think makes a difference and can result in some real change is what the various governments and their leadership realizes. I think that they realize that Hamas is simply a symbol for what can get out of hand all over the world, especially since Hamas has so desperately overplayed their hand. So many missiles - sustained over this long of a period of time, is a sobering thought for those other countries, if and when it comes to their doorstep. I think many of those governments are waking up.
Anyway, that’s what I think.
Thank you for the detailed response.
I guess we will see... and likely very soon.
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